Former Seabee recalls D-Day invasion

The welcoming plaque on the front door of Don and Leslie Carragher's St. Augustine home reads, "Happy Everything."

An abundance of happiness is the most appropriate reward for a man who survived Don Carragher's childhood as well as repeated round trips to Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Carragher, who will turn 81 on June 26, was 17 years old when he went off to join the Navy in World War II.

He had already been through plenty as he prepared to go to war.

"You've seen the movie 'Angela's Ashes'?" Carragher asked. "I had a sort of 'Angela's Ashes' childhood. The American version.

"An alcoholic father. Dad worked and had some good jobs, but very little of the money ever came home."

Carragher "mostly" grew up in Belleville, N.J., a suburb of Newark. However, he said, the family often found itself on the move, "staying one step ahead of the bill collectors."

"My Mom, Mary Carragher, what a woman," he said. "She raised four boys about single-handedly. She was something else."

When the Navy discovered Carragher was color blind, he was told he could serve in the Seabees, the engineering and construction battalion.

"They drafted mostly older guys, construction guys who could operate the big equipment," he said. "They needed kids like us to do the grunt work -- dig the holes and stuff like that.

"Most of them were really great older guys. They were good to guys like me."

Basic training for the Seabees lasted six to eight weeks at Camp Perry, near Williamsburg, Va.

"It was brutal Marine training. They knocked hell out of you," said Carragher. "Very, very tough. And I thank God for it."

Basic training also included an inordinate amount of KP (kitchen police) and marching.

"We marched all the time," Carragher said. "They called us the Shoeshine Battalion, and we marched quite professionally.

"But if I wasn't marching, I was on KP. You'd get up at 4:30 in the morning, go to the mess hall and feed the guys. All. Day. Long."

Also in the service were Carragher's brothers -- Ken, Bob, and Joe the U.S. Marine, who was "a real war hero," a soldier who saw action against the Japanese at Tarawa, Tinian, Saipan and Okinawa.

After basic training, the brand new signalman with the 111th Construction Battalion (Seabee) found himself in New York Harbor, preparing to ship out to England on the Mauritania.

"They gave me guard duty," Carragher recalled. "I'm marching up and down in my dress blues and a peacoat. Carrying a Springfield rifle.

"This war correspondent came up and said, 'This must be old stuff to you, huh, son?'

"I said, 'Yes, sir.'

"I was green as grass, but he thought I was a real veteran."

Carragher, a man who is still slight of stature, took particular delight in describing himself while the Mauritania docked in Liverpool, England.

"There I am getting off the ship with two sea bags, a heavy Springfield rifle, two big helmets and a gas mask. I can hardly walk," he said. "Think of Barney Fife.

"And the English were saying, 'He's coming to save us?' "

For the next six months, Carragher and the other Seabees stayed in Falmouth and Plymouth. Their time was spent training and building "rhino barges," which soon were used to carry men, equipment, trucks and Jeeps to Omaha Beach.

"I was in a tug for the invasion," said Carragher. "And when we got there, the guys were up on the hill. I can't say the beach was cleared, but they weren't fighting on the beach."

It was a scene that can't be forgotten and is almost impossible to talk about:

"Hundreds and hundreds of ships. Explosions -- artillery and small arms. Bodies in the water. Bodies on the beach.

"What can I tell you?

"Only one guy in our unit panicked. He ran up the beach. I thought, 'Where's he going to go? What's he going to do?' "

For the rest of June 6, 1944, the Seabees unloaded troops and tanks. Then they went back for more and took them to the beach. Over and over so many times that Carragher lost count.

"We stayed there for four months and that's what we did," he said. "It got to be sort of a job, unloading the ships.

"I must've seen thousands of soldiers. They were all grim-faced. Didn't talk much. Just smoked their cigarettes."

When the war in Europe ended, Carragher went to New York and got a 30-day leave before boarding the Samuel L. Chase for the Philippines.

He stayed there for 14 months before being sent to Guam for the last six months of his enlistment.

"Something happened to me on the Chase that was the scariest thing, almost as scary as the invasion," Carragher said.

"One day, I was put on guard duty," he said. "I was in a tower. The ship was zigzagging, and we were on the lookout for submarines.

"It was night, dusk, and it was cold. We weren't allowed to speak or have any lights on. It was eerie. And I felt so vulnerable.

"I felt there were subs out there. I just felt it. I really felt fear that night, watching and listening."

After the war, Carragher worked for A&P for four years, then traveled around the country for a little over 11 years, working in resort hotels.

"I was a bellhop, bartender, doorman, desk clerk. Everything you want to name.

"I enjoyed it a lot. Made good money. Met a lot of celebrities."

Learning how to be a good sailor or soldier starts the moment an enlistee sets foot in boot camp, he said.

"They psychoanalyze you; you get preached to," Carragher said. "Your buddies are with you, and it gets to be a team effort.

"Even today, I'm in the Navy League, the vice president in charge of military affairs.